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Black specks in vintage quilt find ?
Hello quilter,
I did see a post whereby another quilter found that her batting had specks in it which was very disappointing I’m sure, but I found a quilt at my grandmother’s house, brand new, still in the bag, one of those one piece tops with a gorgeous print on it and machine quilted. Ya, it wasn’t a handmade find, but it’s still vintage and to me quite beautiful. However, when I washed it and went to take it out of the washer, I was devastated to see black specks all in the batting! I washed the quilt 4-5 more times but nothing changed. I even picked some of these out using two needles and a lot of struggle, and it appeared to be bits of organic material like cotton? The tag said, “The Colonial Quilting Company” but washed out after 1 wash. It is obviously a cheap quilt, maybe sold at low cost stores, but I still love it and would have loved to use it and enjoy it. But I’m feeling like there’s no hope and I’ll have to throw it away. The stitches are coming out on all edges, ending up in big thread wads from the washing, and there’s a ton of lint, I’m guessing from the batting coming through the thin fabric. It appears the batting isn’t adhered together like the Warm and Natural I’ve bought for all my own made quilts. I could see separation in many areas of the batting. I can overcome all of this except for the specks everywhere. Any idea what happened with this company? This batting? Any remedies? Thank you! |
Welcome from Ontario, Canada. It could be natural handmade quilt batting. In vintage quilts before manufactured batt were available, you had to card your own cotton and lay it out in a solid layer and then quilt. The bits that you see may be part of the cotton ball husk. As for fixing it, you could take it apart and reuse the top with a new back and batting. If that isn’t something you want to do, it can still be folded and put on display.
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Welcome to the QB from SE Michigan! I am so sorry that this keepsake had this devastating problem. One reason to use a good bat. And the stitching so sad. It sounds like you are an experienced quilter and know to well when something has these problems it was in the quality of the product and not by any fault of a loved one. As Tartan said you could still put it on display after taking it apart and putting a new bat and backing on it. I am glad you jumped right in and I hope to see a lot of you here. Again welcome to the QB.
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Welcome from outside St.Louis, Missouri.
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Welcome from Yorkville, Illinois.
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Welcome to the board.
Sorry you had such a bad experience. I've never heard of the Colonial Quilt Company. If all their products were made as shoddily as it sounds your quilt was, it's no wonder it's no longer in business. |
Bet Tartan is right, it's probably part of a cotton seed. I know sometimes an entire seed has escaped being picked out and can be found in old quilts.
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I have a Grandmother's Flower Garden hand made by my grandmother in the 1920's. I the dark spots problem and was really worried it was mildew. Had it appraised and was told that the bats in the early part of century were likely either cotton or wool and the cotton was not needle punched or had resin in it so needed to be closely quilted. And that my dark spots were pieces of cotton seed and not to worry--helped date the quilt as authentic.
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Sounds like it was not well made, and will continue to give you problems. How about reproducing the pattern yourself, using good fabrics and batting? Would that be possible?
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Welcome from NE Ohio.
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